Moscow Rhetorical School of Yu.V. Rozhdestvensky: founder and followers

Many schools of rhetoric, as well as independent scientists who create their direction in the field of rhetoric, are widespread currently in Russia. This article is devoted to the researchers of Moscow School of Rhetoric, united by the General and Comparative Historical Linguistics Department of Moscow State University. The 1970s are marked by the revival of rhetoric, when in spite of resistance in certain academic circles, the new Head of Department Yuri Vladimirovich Rozhdestvensky began a dynamic research on rhetoric and gave a variety of courses related to both the general and business rhetoric. Yu.V. Rozhdestvensky is rightly seen as a scholar who revived rhetoric in Russia and founded its modern theory. Basing on V.V. Vinogradov's philosophical and linguistic theory, he reintroduced classical rhetorical terms and presented a new approach to speech research in the modern society. In the period of mass media communication development Yu.V. Rozhdestvensky set the task for specialists in Russian philology to explore this powerful form of speech, and in real teaching practice he developed methods of teaching rhetoric. Rozhdestvensky defined rhetoric as a classical humanitarian discipline that studies speech and recommends rules of skilful, sensible and convincing speech. In our view it is critical to emphasize the scientific traditional component in the definition of rhetoric. Rozhdestvensky told about the new understanding of rhetoric: it includes prose speech in all spheres of life, as it was stated by Aristotle. In his keynote treatise Theory of Rhetoric Yu.V. Rozhdestvensky determined speech as an instrument of social management and control. He formulated several aims of rhetoric: 1) the ability to understand speech correctly and quickly; 2) the ability to invent ideas and actions expressing them in a proper verbal form. It means the ability to create a monologue, run and manage a dialogue, and manage the system of communication. Both aims should be based on the speech culture of the community. A good speaker should be able to persuade, agitate, promote. Rozhdestvensky made some valuable recommendations on the speaker's preparation, "self-making", which are given in the traditions of classical rhetoric. Ideas of Rozhdestvensky's treatise have further been developed by A.A. Volkov, V.I. Annushkin and other scholars of Moscow School of Rhetoric.

Keywords

Authors

References